


Not Always

by Anonymous



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Study, Comfort/Angst, Episode Tag, F/M, Melinda May Feels, Phil Coulson Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27219460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He gave up his life to save the entire team, but the person he thought of when he made the deal was Melinda. Melinda, who played pranks on him in the academy. Melinda, who hugged him tight when he found out he was going to be Fury’s rookie. Melinda, who stood by him even when he made dumbass decisions.Melinda, who he loves.
Relationships: Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 16
Kudos: 42
Collections: Anonymous





	Not Always

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to ashley/bad_ash10 for helping this become coherent!!
> 
> i hit 200k words, hurray

I keep thinking about May and Coulson in Season 5, episode 12. 

She asks him, ‘are you in pain?’ 

And it sounds vulnerable; uncharacteristically _scared_. May already knows the answer. She can see it in the minuscule tightening of his eyes when he moves and the way he seems to struggle to breathe sometimes. She notices it all, but has understandably chalked it up to being a result of being thrust into space right after getting stuck in a virtual reality. 

(She’s in pain too. Some days her muscles are stiff and on fire, but she doesn’t say anything. She never does.) 

But now she knows. She knows, and she hates herself that she missed it; she cast it aside as unimportant. Phil Coulson being in pain shouldn’t have been overlooked so much. She had just been so distracted… 

And yet she’s still asking. ‘Are you in pain’. To give him a choice. In a way, almost a second chance, though she’s not even close to forgiving him for not telling her. After everything. So she’s asking if he’s in pain, and for the first time in a while, she doesn’t know how he’ll answer. He might lie; say he’s not. Probably to protect her. That would hurt her even deeper; that he’d lie again to keep her from worrying (though she’s always worried about Phil Coulson).

But she also doesn’t want him to tell her the truth. That he is in pain. Because that, coupled with the fact that his eyes are shadowed and his head hangs when he thinks nobody is looking, would be proof that he’s starting to give up. He obviously already has.

And he says it, and it _hurts_.

When he says, ‘not always,’ with that gentle, tired tone of his that she can recall back to the days after Bahrain, when she didn’t sleep because she was plagued with nightmares of little girls that hadn’t deserved to be murdered. (He just held her, rocking her back and forth and whispering nothings to her, grounding her.) No, it’s not his voice that hurts her. His voice sounds like home.

When he says ‘not always,’ it’s his eyes that hurt her. They’re filled with pain, guilt, and relief. He’s admitting the truth, she knows. He’s telling her because he knows that there is no going back. 

He has given up, and it _hurts_.

They both know that those two words can barely express what he’s hidden the past few months, and yet neither of them say a thing.

Phil remembers how every morning he wakes up and can’t breathe. He’s stuck gasping for air that’s right in front of him and yet so far out of reach before he finally inhales raggedly and realizes that it’s not his time yet. And what scares him more than facing death every day is that he is disappointed when it evades him.

‘Not always’ is a _lie_. 

He isn’t in physical pain every minute of the day, no, but he feels like an inky blackness is following him, infecting him as he tries to get Daisy to understand that she must do what he started. She has to carry on in his name, so that what he did with his life doesn’t disappear. So that what they did as a _team_ doesn’t disappear. The team needs a leader, and soon, he won’t be there to fill that role.

‘Not always’ is an empty reassurance. To himself, and to May.

May. He’s leaving her, they both know it. They both know from the weakly masked pain in his eyes that he doesn’t have much time left. He gave up his life to save the entire team, but the person he thought of when he made the deal was Melinda. Melinda, who played pranks on him in the academy. Melinda, who screamed excitedly and hugged him tight when he found out he was going to be Fury’s rookie. Melinda, who stood by him even when he made dumbass decisions. Melinda, who he loves.

And he says ‘not always’, hoping that it will ease her worry and yet knowing that it won’t. Because they are closer than that.

They are close enough that they can ask rhetorical questions like ‘are you in pain’ and answer with lies like ‘not always’ and yet still know exactly the symphony of subtext that lay hidden in each other’s faces, movements, and actions. They use so much more than words to communicate.

They know each other, every memory of grief and of loss, and every scar that traces their bodies. They are partners, in the truest sense of the word. Equals, despite Phil’s position. 

And then he lied. He lied to protect her, yes, but they both know she is stronger than to need protection from his pain. His pain is her pain, and even after thirty years they are still slowly understanding.

They are one.

And now they both are on the same page once again: Phil is dying, and Melinda will be alone.

She asks, ‘Are you in pain?’

Truthfully, he doesn’t know what hurts worse, leaving her behind or the pain of slowly dying. So he compromises. “Not always,” he says.

He _means_ , ‘not when I’m with you’.


End file.
